Students Have Trouble Adapting to New Online Classes
Since school closed because of COVID-19, the district switched to online classes. It is hard for students to adapt to this new way of learning.
Students have trouble teaching themselves and easily get stressed and are not mentally and emotionally ready for teaching themselves. Stressing over their grades and how they will learn the lessons,
Teenagers are not mentally and emotionally healthy.
Some live overwhelmed—and often alone with so many other things going on in their lives. It is hard to understand someone’s situation and putting yourself in their shoes. How can students stay mentally strong and do their school work when they are falling apart and every day becomes harder for them to survive?
How can they deal with their emotions when no one can understand them and make them feel better? School was an excuse to avoid those emotions and see their friends and feel better. With school closing, it’s hard to keep the emotions inside. There are students that go through so much negativity in their surroundings.
And now online school is hard for them and it is less effective. Being in school person with teachers and other students creates social pressures and benefits that can help motivate students to engage.
Students who struggled in person are struggling online more. Its important that teachers understand what students know and what they don’t know, as well as how to help them learn new material.
In the online setting, students may have more distractions and less oversight—which can reduce their motivation.
A lot of students are not learning and they just do their work to get that grade because the grade seems more acceptable then what you actually learn.
Personally I am struggling in geometry because I can’t learn it just by three or four pages of slides and then have to take the quiz and tests. Its really stressing me out sometimes because I didn’t learn the lessons well and at the same time, I have to keep my grades up.
I am really thankful for the teachers that try to not put to much stress on students and care more about their mental and emotional health because we are going through crises and how we should pretend that nothing is happening and avoid all problems in our lives and do really good on online school.
Michala Rapozo • Dec 2, 2020 at 5:20 PM
As I read this article 7 months after it was written I still feel the same. It has officially almost been nine months since online school started and I still have not perfected the ways of distance learning. I still continue to struggle with math and comprehending the lessons. In the beginning of this November I got super excited because I saw that we may actually have the chance to return to class in a socially distant way. As we reached the end of November these options weren’t really present anymore because COVID cases rose abruptly. Though my life has slowed down and I have had more energy and am less stressed from staying at home all day I still tend to struggle with school more often than when I would attend school.
Hannah Lee • Nov 1, 2020 at 5:23 PM
I agree and relate to everything you have written. There has already been enough stress going around about preventing ourselves from getting the virus. But the fact that school has finally started where we enter into a higher grade level, with goals to achieve during this time, it has all progressively gotten worse for most of us mentally and physically. We are learning in such a comfortable environment that it is almost too easy for us to get distracted, which leads us to not paying attention and not learning the material. Since we do not have a teacher around to help us right away, it makes matters even more difficult. I feel like a lot of students are either extremely working themselves out, or they have given up.
Nikhil Patel • Oct 27, 2020 at 5:18 PM
I definitely agree. With the pandemic, everything seems super stressful right now. Paired with online school, it’s even worse. It sucks that this is our only option though, because it seems as if there is no better one. With COVID cases rising every day, it’s safer to do school from home, but it has a horrible mental impact on students, who feel isolated. Personally, I get super distracted or browse my phone whenever it’s next to me on school Zooms, whereas I can’t do that when school was in-person. I hope we can go back to school as soon as possible safely.
Nikhil Patel • Oct 27, 2020 at 5:17 PM
I definitely agree. With the pandemic, everything seems super stressful right now. Paired with online school, it’s even worse. It sucks that this is our only option though, because it seems as if there is no better one. With COVID cases rising every day, its safer to do school from home, but it has a horrible mental impact on students, who feel isolated. Personally, I get super distracted or browse my phone whenever its next to me on school Zooms, whereas I can’t do that when school was in-person. I hope we can go back to school as soon as possible safely.